Are you a Mac user who hasn’t got around to working out shortcuts for special characters? You’re not alone. Most new Mac users work out a few quick shortcuts for their favourite tools and figure they’ll work out the rest later. Then they realise years down the track that later never comes!

Well, the good news is that special language characters are incredibly easy to do on a Mac. Once you get started you’ll see that it follows a simple pattern, making it easy to remember your favourites and to work out the less frequently used characters on the fly when you need them. When you truly get the hang of it, you’ll never want to go back to another operating system.

Why Learn Shortcuts For Accents?

The beauty of these shortcuts is that you’ll never need to switch keyboards again. Stay in whichever keyboard you prefer for everyday use and add accents when required. No more messing around with the character map either!

Trust me, it’s far easier to stick with a QUERTY keyboard than it is to change to an AZERTY keyboard. Plus, if you’ve changed to a different keyboard you still need to remember where they put the accents you’re looking for.

Cedilla/Cedille – Ã§

OE ligature Å“

AE ligature Ã¦

Foreign Punctuation

Spanish/French Quotation Marks « »

Upside Down Exclamation Mark ¡

Upside Down Question Mark ¿

OPTION ? (Which is really OPTION SHIFT /).

Money Symbols

Euro Symbol â‚¬

OPTION SHIFT 2.

British Pound £

OPTION 3.

Cent Symbol ¢

OPTION 4.

Yen Symbol ¥

OPTION y.

More Methods & Symbols

There are plenty more symbols to be found this way. Mac OS X help pages suggest using the keyboard viewer to find new combinations. To set this up, do to Apple Menu > System Preferences > International.

Then ensure Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer are turned on.

To open Keyboard Viewer, go to the international flag on the right of your menu bar and choose Show Keyboard Viewer.

Now, you’ll be able to type and hold OPTION and see all the shortcut possibilities. It’s also an easy reminder if you forget one of your favourites.

Character Map might also come in handy if you’ve forgotten the shortcuts.

More Mac OS X Shortcuts & Tips

Obviously you’re a fan of MacOS shortcuts and language settings, so here’s some more great articles you’ll love.

I suggest also selecting both the U.S. & U.S. Extended keyboards for the Input Menu from the International System Preference, particularly if you use an English / US keyboard or type in English. The U.S. keyboard uses Roman script, while the U.S. Extended uses Unicode. The option key activates different characters with the different keyboards. There are more accents with the US Extended. Theses differences may pertain to other language keyboards (e.g. Irish), but I haven't tried them.

I like to use option-v for " ? " (square root / check mark) from the US keyboard. The US Extended keyboard types the caron " ? " accent with option-v. And option-shift-k is " ? " on the US, while it is " ? " on the US Extended. (I hope these examples will display correctly…)

I also note a small error for the AE ligature æ noted above. The key to press is " ' " (single quote), not " ` " (grave accent) (regardless of which US keyboard).

I suggest also selecting both the U.S. & U.S. Extended keyboards for the Input Menu from the International System Preference, particularly if you use an English / US keyboard or type in English. The U.S. keyboard uses Roman script, while the U.S. Extended uses Unicode. The option key activates different characters with the different keyboards. There are more accents with the US Extended. Theses differences may pertain to other language keyboards (e.g. Irish), but I haven't tried them.

I like to use option-v for " âˆš " (square root / check mark) from the US keyboard. The US Extended keyboard types the caron " Ë‡ " accent with option-v. And option-shift-k is " ï£¿ " on the US, while it is " Ëš " on the US Extended. (I hope these examples will display correctlyâ€¦)

I also note a small error for the AE ligature Ã¦ noted above. The key to press is " ' " (single quote), not " ` " (grave accent) (regardless of which US keyboard).

I suggest also selecting both the U.S. & U.S. Extended keyboards for the Input Menu from the International System Preference, particularly if you use an English / US keyboard or type in English. The U.S. keyboard uses Roman script, while the U.S. Extended uses Unicode. The option key activates different characters with the different keyboards. There are more accents with the US Extended. Theses differences may pertain to other language keyboards (e.g. Irish), but I haven't tried them.

I like to use option-v for " âˆš " (square root / check mark) from the US keyboard. The US Extended keyboard types the caron " Ë‡ " accent with option-v. And option-shift-k is " ï£¿ " on the US, while it's " Ëš " on the US Extended. There are a few others. (I hope these examples will display correctlyâ€¦)

I also note a small error for the AE ligature Ã¦ noted above. The key to press is " ' " (single quote), not " ` " (regardless of which US keyboard).